北辰有话说：
在我的公司，我未来会希望一周是六天，工作四天，休息两天。
一年 365 天是地球公转速度决定的，一天 24 小时是自转决定的。而一周 7 天则是圣经提到，基督的信徒们规定的。可是我们一定要让两千年前原始的人们告诉我们一周就应该是七天，一周就应该工作五天吗？
就好像有些国家的车在马路右边开，有的在左边开。一周几天其实是一个 coordination 问题。我们希望大家用的是同一种计量方式，同一种时间计算方式来更好地合作。但是目前的方式不代表就是最合适当下社会和人们的需求的。改变是有可能、有必要的。毕竟，当年瑞典还换过法律，从马路左边开变到右边开呢。
本文来自 NPR Radio 一个美国流行的节目叫做 Life Kit 。
我觉得这个访谈很有意思，翻译出来和大家一起交流交流。
译者：Tracy Zhang
The 40-hour workweek isn’t working. Reducing it could help with productivity
一周 40 小时工作制不太行！缩短每周工作时长能够提高生产力
The five-day workweek can feel as preordained and immovable as the number of minutes in an hour. You wake up, go to work and come home. Then, wash, rinse, repeat until the weekend.
每周5天的工作时间就像是每小时的分钟数一样，给人的感觉是注定的、不可改变的。起床，工作，回家，洗漱。这样重复下去，直到周末。
But the Monday-to-Friday grind hasn’t existed forever. Nearly a century ago, working six days a week was the norm. In the U.S., the five-day workweek (along with the two-day weekend) is something workers fought for and won in the 1930s after working years in grueling conditions that are now illegal.
然而，从周一辛勤工作到周五并不是一开始就定下的规则。近一个世纪前，每周工作六天是常态。在美国，每周工作五天（周末休息两天）是工人们二十世纪三十年代在艰苦环境中工作多年后和立法者、雇主斗争得来的，而现在一周六天工作制在美国已经是非法的。
The world has changed a lot since the five-day workweek became enshrined into federal law. But we’ve kept working 40 hours from Monday through Friday even though that schedule no longer supports many workers.
自从五天工作制被写入美国联邦法以来，世界就发生了翻天覆地的变化。我们一直遵循着周一到周五工作40小时的制度，尽管这种制度对许多上班族来说并不是最高效的。
“The normal working week doesn’t work in many ways,” says U.K.-based researcher Will Stronge, who co-wrote the book Overtime: Why We Need a Shorter Working Week with Kyle Lewis. “It’s just hidden by the fact that we’re forced to do it.”
“现在的工作周制度在很多方面都是不可行的。”英国的一位研究员威尔·斯特朗格（Will Stronge）指出。他和凯尔·刘易斯（Kyle Lewis）共同编写了《超负荷工作以后：为什么我们需要缩短工作周》一书。”这种行不通的工作制度只是被我们不得不这样做的事实掩盖了”，威尔·斯特朗格这样说。
Stronge says being at work for eight hours of the day doesn’t mean you’re operating at peak productivity for those eight consecutive hours. But that’s what the five-day workweek suggests. Meanwhile, workers in all kinds of industries are suffering from burnout and blurred lines between their professional and personal lives.
斯特朗格提出，一天工作8小时，并不意味着你在这连续的8个小时内都能高效产出。但这正是五天工作周制度暗含的意思。同时，各行各业的员工都正在经历职业倦怠，也面临着工作与个人生活之间界限模糊的困扰。
So, how did we get here, and where can we go? Life Kit spoke with Stronge about when the five-day workweek became normal, what has changed since then and what a shorter workweek offers workers and organizations. Excerpts from the conversation, edited for length and clarity, are below.
那么，就当前的工作制度而言，我们是如何走到现在这一步的？未来又该何去何从？本期生活指南对话斯特朗格，就五天工作周何时成为常态，此后又发生了什么变化，以及缩短工作周对员工和组织有何好处进行了讨论。为确保文章长度适中和表述的清晰度，我们对谈话内容进行了加工整合，以下是摘录内容。
Interview highlights
采访要点
How we got to the five-day workweek
我们是如何实现五天工作制的？
Coming out of World War I and World War II, [workers] basically wanted a better deal. You had President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the U.S. who said: Look, we want a welfare system. We want better support for our society. Frances Perkins, Roosevelt’s secretary of labor, was very much informed by [workers] making these demands on [working hours and conditions]. So you get the Fair [Labor Standards] Act in 1938 baking in the 40-hour working week into legislation to set new standards for what the working week is.
一战和二战结束后，大多数「工人们」都想要获得更好的待遇。美国的富兰克林·罗斯福总统，他提出：我们需要一个福利制度。我们要为社会的稳定和发展提供更好的支持。而劳工部长弗朗西斯·帕金斯了解到，「工人们」就「工作时间和环境」提出的要求较多。因此，1938年的《公平劳动标准法》将每周40小时的工作时间纳入立法，以此为工作周设下新的标准。
How work has changed since the five-day workweek became normal
五天工作制常态化后，工作发生了怎样的变化？
In the U.S., we’ve gone from large manufacturing economies to more service-based economies. The U.S. still has a lot of manufacturing, of course. But now, there’s a lot more desk-based work, particularly since the IT revolution of the ’80s and 90s’.
美国已经从大型制造业经济体过渡到了更多基于服务业的经济体。当然，美国现在仍有大量制造业领域的工作。但现在，尤其是自八九十年代信息技术革命以来，更多的工作是在办公室就能完成的。
I think what’s happened since is that our working culture has changed to be one where it’s much more about going above and beyond — working beyond your hours either for better career prospects or simply because it is demanded of you by your boss.
我认为，从那以后，我们的工作文化就已经改变了。加班，更多地是需要我们不断超越自己，或是突破自己：不论是为了更好的职业发展，抑或仅仅是迫于老板的要求。
Now, during the pandemic, you’re in your living room with your laptop. So it’s hard to switch off this creep which has infiltrated our working lives. I think it’s safe to say it’s to the detriment of most people that it’s hard to switch off.
疫情期间，你会拿着你的笔记本电脑待在客厅（办公）。因此，想要戒掉这个已经渗透进我们工作和生活中的习惯是很困难的。而这种难以摆脱的习惯对大多数人是不利的。
How a shorter workweek addresses the “second shift” women perform at work and at home
缩短工作周是如何解决女性在工作和家庭中的“第二轮工作”的问题的？
The male breadwinner model has been around since the start of industrialism. Women looked after kids, prepared their meals and also nurtured and looked after the male worker after he came home exhausted from the industrial grind. Throughout the 20th century, when women entered the workplace, women got incomes of their own and lived lives outside of the domestic regime. But they also got the “second shift.” You work your job, you go home, you do the second shift of looking after the family and preparing the meal.
男性养家糊口的模式自工业化以来就一直存在。女性看管孩子，煮饭做菜。当筋疲力尽的男性工人结束劳动回到家后，女性还要照顾他们。二十世纪以来，女性开始步入职场，有属于自己的收入，体验到了照顾家庭以外的生活。然而，与此同时她们也获得了 “第二轮工作”。也就是说，职场里的工作仅仅是第一轮，回到家后，女性依然要照顾家人、煮饭做菜，完成她们的“第二轮工作”。
So, if you’re talking about reducing working hours in general, a four-day workweek will first and foremost benefit those who work the longest hours in total. This is particularly relevant to women who both have their paid employment and their unpaid work at home. Work is a feminist issue as much as anything else.
因此，如果你说的是一般意义上的减少工作时间，那么每周四天的工作时间将最先造福那些总工作时间最长的员工。这尤其关系到那些既要在职场从事有偿工作，又要在家里进行无偿劳动的女性工作者。（由于“第二轮工作”的存在，她们可以说是总工作时间最长的员工了，缩短工作周也就意味着女性总工作时长的减少）这里的工作问题，实际上是一个女权主义问题。
How the five-day workweek hurts the environment
五天工作制是如何破坏环境的？
Studies carried out around the world link working hours to people’s carbon emissions or carbon footprints. That’s not just because of the kind of work people do in production (manufacturing and construction being very carbon intensive). It’s not just that. It’s also because of things like commuting. If people drive to work, that’s a huge carbon burden. If you’re taking ready-made meals and bottled water, these kinds of quick, easy foods that come with a work-centered lifestyle, they have high carbon footprints as well. If we’re going to fight climate change, a decent way of doing that while also improving people’s working lives is reducing the work of the working week.
有一些世界范围的研究会将工作时长与人类的碳排放或碳足迹联系起来。这不仅仅是因为人们在生产过程中需要做相关工作进行碳排放（制造业和建筑业都是碳排放密集型行业）。除此之外，还有通勤等因素的影响。如果人们开车去上班，碳排放的负担就会很重。如果是带上现成的饭菜和瓶装水去上班，这些以工作为中心的生活方式下产生的快餐的碳足迹依然是很高的。因此，我们要想对抗气候变化，在改善工作生活方式的同时，另一个可取的方法就是减少工作量。
What a shorter workweek offers workers and organizations
缩短工作周能给员工和公司带来什么？
For many organizations, what you lose in labor time you gain in greater productivity on the job. For a lot of desk-based fields — creative organizations, administrative organizations and small manufacturers as well — there’s a recognition that in an eight-hour day, there is some slack. We can’t concentrate all the time, particularly if you’re overworked and burned out. So reducing the working week has reaped dividends in terms of productivity and worker well-being, which means workers come to work refreshed. They come to work liking their job a bit more and wanting to get the work done so that they can have a nice weekend.
对于许多公司来说，损失的劳动时间换来的是更高的生产力。对于很多服务型办公企业，即创意型组织、行政组织和小型制造商，也是如此。人们认识到，一天八小时的工作中总会有懈怠的时候。我们不可能一直集中精力，特别是当你超负荷工作变得疲惫不堪的时候。因此，减少工作时间能够帮助提高生产力和提升员工工作的幸福感。这也意味着员工会更有活力地进行工作。他们会更喜欢自己的工作，且非常期望能完成好工作，这样他们就能有一个愉快的周末。
The biggest challenges to shortening the workweek
缩短工作周所面临的最大的挑战是什么？
The main obstacle for implementing a shorter workweek is changing the work culture. You might have people who want to work above and beyond. They might want to prove that they’re working hard by putting in extra hours. But that’s detrimental because a workplace with a decent working culture would be one where the quality of work is good, where everyone’s playing their role and collaborating within the team. It’s not about individually proving that you’re a harder worker than others. So, laying down firm guidelines and ground rules about what working hours are and what’s expected of staff — that’s what needs to be in place to avoid overwork culture.
缩短工作周想要执行下去，主要的障碍在于改变工作文化。你想，可能有一些人就是想加班。他们可能想通过付出额外的时间来证明他们在努力工作。但这是不对的。因为正向的工作文化应该是：高质量工作，每个人都各司其职又精诚合作，而不是为了证明你比别人更努力工作。因此，根据工作时长和对员工的期望来制定严格的指导方针和工作准则，才是摆脱加班文化的正确路径。
Why we should care about a shorter workweek
为什么我们应该关注缩短工作周的问题？
I think we should all be interested in the future of work. We’re all workers of one kind or another, whether it’s manufacturing or service sector or radio. The future is something that we can, and should, shape. And I think we should steer away from this wave of automation coming in, the jobless future, and so on. We should not give in to the temptation to think that the future is just on its way to impose stuff on us. But we should be interested in the future of work so we can change it.
我认为我们都应该关心工作制度的发展趋势。绝大多数人都是“打工人”，无论是处于制造业、服务业还是无线电领域。未来的工作制度是我们能够也应该去塑造的。同时，我们也不该受到自动化时代以及未来可能面临的失业问题的影响。我们不应该被迷惑，认为未来只是强加给我们的虚无幻想。我们应该关注未来工作制度的发展趋势，只有这样，我们才有能力做出改变。
How we’d fill time on our day off
我们该如何度过休息日？
This sounds quite banal, but a lot of people just get their life admin done so the weekends are entirely clear to do all the fun stuff they want to do. I’ve met people who say they used to brew beer and they want to get back into that. And a lot of people just want to spend more time with their family and pick their kids up from school and so on, which I think is quite heartwarming.
这听起来是个很老套的问题。但实际上只是因为很多人在工作日就把他们的工作完成了，所以周末就完全可以做他们想做的认为有趣的事。我遇到过一些人，他们过去常常会自己酿啤酒，现在他们又打算重新开始做这件事。也有很多人，他们只是想在休息日花更多的时间陪家人，接他们的孩子放学等等。在我看来，这都是非常温暖的事情。
英文原文链接：https://www.npr.org/2021/10/04/1043145165/four-day-work-week
图片来源：https://cn.bing.com/images/search？q=workweek&form=HDRSC2&first=1&tsc=ImageBasicHover
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